


Sophronia

by Edonohana



Category: Misery - Stephen King, Misery Chastain Series - Paul Sheldon
Genre: Candy, Gothic, Horror, Metafiction, Multi, Pregnancy, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 01:29:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21128546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Annie Wilkes conjures up Misery Chastain out of the power of fan love.





	Sophronia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scioscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/gifts).

> See end notes for specific (spoilery) warnings.

The last thing Misery remembered, she had been languishing in the dank root cellar into which she’d been thrown by the self-proclaimed king of Barlavington-on-Pylle, there to stay until she agreed to be his “queen.” But Misery was no stranger to imprisonment. She had been locked up in worse places—the madhouse came immediately to mind—and she knew that if she only endured, Ian and Geoffrey would come to save her. They always did.

And so when she awoke and found herself lying in a warm soft bed rather than cold hard clay, with light shining gently through her eyelids, she was more happy than surprised. Her eyes still closed, she lifted her arms and called out, “Ian, my darling! My dear Geoffrey!”

But she did not feel Geoffrey’s strong and manly grip, nor the softness of Ian’s hair. Instead, a woman’s voice said, “They’re not here. _I’m_ here.”

Misery’s eyes flew open. She lay alone in a strange room, with a big woman in a gray workman’s shirt and blue trousers standing over her. The woman’s face was marred with scabbed-over scratches, as if she’d been in a fight some days ago.

A hot tide of blood flowed over Misery’s face. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I thought I was with my husband and my… friend.”

The woman was staring at her with the strangest look on her face. Misery wondered if she was perhaps a bit simple, and was sure of it when the woman reached out and picked up a lock of her hair, rubbing it between her fingers like a child playing with a dollie.

“There’s those deep red glints,” the woman said. There was an unclean ecstasy in her voice that reminded Misery of her captivity with that dark sect of excommunicated nuns, the Sisters of Eternal Damnation. Sister Sybella had spoken just so. “They really are like flickers of flame.”

Misery sat up, pulling up her knees to form as much of a barrier as she could between herself and the woman fingering her hair. Politely, she said, “Thank you very much for your hospitality, ma’am. Can you tell me how I got here?”

The woman released her hair after a final, lingering stroke. “I brought you here. And don’t be so formal. We’re friends! More than friends. So call me Annie. I’m Annie Wilkes, your number-one fan.” 

Misery had never seen the woman before in her life, and had no idea what a “number-one fan” was. But she had already changed her initial impression of Annie from “simple” to the more alarming one of “mad.” The mad, with whom she had a great deal of experience, often spoke in a confused and nonsensical manner. But they could also be extraordinarily cunning. Misery would have to be very careful not to upset any of Annie’s strange beliefs, lest she be harmed in a fit of sudden anger.

“I saved you,” Annie went on. “I saved your life!”

_And that, _ Misery thought, _might well be the honest truth._

“Thank you,” she said, with sincerity as well as tact. “It’s wonderful to be out of the mad ‘king’s’ root cellar.”

“Oh, is that where you were?” Annie’s broad smile faded, and the feverish glitter in her eyes went out like a candle. Her face went slack, her hands hanging at her sides like lumps of meat. Her spirit seemed to no longer be animating her body. 

As the silence stretched, Misery considered getting up and trying the door. Would Annie even notice? It would no doubt be locked, but…

Before Misery could do more than sit up straighter, Annie returned to her body. But her former pleasure was now mixed with calculation and the flavor of future regret. Annie looked her up and down like… Misery hated to think it, but it was just like a farmer evaluating his favorite pig for the meat he needed to feed his family. 

“So,” Annie said slowly. “You’re already pregnant.”

Misery’s eyes widened with shock. How could anyone know that? It was so early that Misery herself hadn’t been sure. She’d intended to wait till she was certain before telling Ian and Geoffrey, but then she’d been kidnapped. Perhaps she’d spent more time in the root cellar—or in this room—than she’d realized. Over a month, for Annie to notice that she had missed her flow. 

Then delight flooded her. So she _was_ with child! She and Geoffrey had been right—she could conceive after all. It was only poor dear Ian who could not. But it would be Ian’s babe as well, born of his love for her and Geoffrey, and their love for him. This child would in truth have two fathers, and would be loved like no baby had ever been loved before.

“What are you grinning at?” Annie asked sharply. “You died! Bled to death in childbirth! Oh that dirty bird Paul Sheldon. I wish I could get my hands on him. I’d wring his neck like a chicken.”

Annie lifted her arms. Misery thought she’d imitate a chicken’s neck being wrung. Instead, she moved her forearms out, as if she was putting them around a man’s neck, and gave a vicious jerk. As she did so, she stamped her foot on the floor, making a sharp cracking sound. It was just like when Geoffrey had crept up behind Mad Jack Wickersham, who had been holding a scimitar against her throat, and broken his neck. Misery’s blood ran cold at the thought that Annie might not have merely witnessed such an event. She certainly looked strong enough to snap the slim column of Misery’s neck.

And what did Annie mean by saying she had died? Did the madwoman think Misery was a ghost? A revenant? And why would she blame a man whose name Misery had never heard before? 

Misery felt utterly at sea, and had no idea what to say. Luckily, Annie did not appear to require a response. 

“You broke Ian’s heart, and Geoffrey’s—and mine. Oh, I could have torn that cockadoodie Paul Sheldon to _shreds!_” Annie raised her hands again, this time in claws, and ripped them through the air. “But he’s all the way in New York. And it was too late anyway. You were dead.” Her hands turned slowly, as if she was a marionette controlled by an unseen puppeteer, and moved toward the scratches on her own face. 

With fresh horror, Misery realized that Annie must have clawed at herself like an animal. She caught at the madwoman’s hands. “No, no, don’t!”

Her touch seemed to break the spell. Annie looked down at her with fondness, and clasped Misery’s hands in her larger, coarser ones. “I won’t. I don’t need to. You see, there’s nothing more powerful than fan love. I sat here in this room and I burned the pages of that cockadoodie book, one by one. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I didn’t drink. I did nothing but read the other books, the _good_ books.” 

Annie indicated a shelf of books. From what Misery could see of them, they were rather like the yellowbacks which Mrs. Ramage so enjoyed, with titles like _The City of Dreadful Night_ and _On the Wings of the Wind_. Misery had once caught her reading one called _Misery Junction_, and they’d both laughed at the title. 

“And you came.” A smile lit up Annie’s face, one so full of pure joy that she looked as young and innocent as the girl-child she had once been. “Misery Chastain! Real and alive and in my house. And just as beautiful as the books said.”

Annie plumped down on the bed, running her hands up and down Misery’s exposed arms. Misery flinched, but there was little she could do. Annie was so much bigger and stronger than her. She might be as strong as Ian, even, though surely not as strong as Geoffrey. 

“Oh, we’re going to be so happy together. I’ll comb your hair and rub cream into your face and dress you in the prettiest clothes.” Annie simpered like a young girl cozying up to a more popular girl she was hoping to befriend. “Shall I brush your hair now?”

Misery debated between pleasing Annie now at the cost of inviting further encroachments upon her body, or refusing her and risking being thrown in Annie's own root cellar. Taking a middle course, she suggested, “Might I brush yours?”

“Oh, you are the sweetest little thing! Yes, you do mine… after I do yours.” Annie took a brush from her bag, sat behind Misery, and began stroking it through her hair. Her fingers trailed behind her after each stroke of the brush, caressing Misery’s scalp. 

Yes. Annie was very much like Sister Sybella. Misery devoutly hoped that she would be saved before she suffered the fate they called worse than death, from which she had so often been delivered in the nick of time. But there was something else about Annie, something even worse than the skin-crawling intimacies she was taking with Misery’s person, which did not have a clear parallel in memory. She hoped she would be delivered before she figured it out.

_They will come for me,_ she thought, trying to take her mind off Annie’s hands and her exclamations over the softness of her skin and the silkiness of her hair. _Soon. Perhaps even now they’re approaching this place. Perhaps Ian’s hand is lifted to the door while Geoffrey stands guard…_

Annie pulled back Misery’s petticoat, and let out a delighted crow. “There’s the heart-shaped birthmark! My goodness, it does look just like a Valentine heart. And it really is bright red.”

Something warm and soft and wet—a sweaty fingertip? Dear God in Heaven, not a _tongue—_ outlined the birthmark which Misery had only ever allowed Geoffrey and Ian to touch.

Misery jerked her petticoat back up, her self-control snapping like a strand of spiderweb. “Take your hands off me!”

Annie’s eyes became cold and flat as flagstones. “You’re not very grateful to the woman who saved your life.”

“I am grateful to you for taking me from the root cellar,” Misery said. “And I will be more grateful to you for showing me the way out, if you please.” 

“What do you have to go to? I have everything for you, right here.”

“Do you have Ian? Do you have Geoffrey? Then there is _nothing _ for me here!” Misery stood up and strode toward the door with as much dignity as she could muster, though she was certain that it would be locked. Still, she felt obliged to try. 

An iron grip caught her by the wrist and flung her back on the bed. Annie loomed over her, huge and unyielding as a standing stone. Then, like lightning striking the rock and cracking it in two, Annie’s silence was shattered by a sudden rage. 

“Ungrateful! I saved your life, and all you can talk about is getting away. I didn’t eat for days, so _you_ could live! I brought food for _you_, and didn’t touch a cockadoodie crumb! But I guess that’s not good enough for Miss Hoity-Toity Lace Petticoats!” 

Annie stooped to the table by the bed and seized a tray of objects which Misery only understood were edible because Annie had referred to them as food. Several of the objects slid off the tray and on to the floor.

Frustration touched a flame to Misery’s temper. “I shall eat none of your foul food! Imprison me if you will, kill me if you must, but you shall not keep me as a living doll!”

The stony silence came over Annie again, her rage cooling into something more frightening. She stood there and stared at nothing, her face slack and eyes blank. 

_She’s not like Sister Sybella at all,_ Misery thought, her heart going cold with fear. _She’s like… like…_

Awareness, if not animation, seeped back into Annie. She looked down at Misery with contempt. “You have no idea what I can do to you. Of course I can keep you. I can hook you up to an IV—you don’t know what that is, but it’ll keep you alive. A naso-gastric tube would keep you going even longer. You don’t even know what I’m saying, do you? And you think you’re so smart.” 

“I understand that you believe you can do some magic to preserve my life, even as you believe that you pulled me from death,” Misery said cautiously. 

Viciously, Annie said, “Let’s see if you understand _this_.” 

She plucked up one of the objects, a flat thing with writing on it. Misery had only the briefest glimpse with which to see that though the letters were English, she knew none of the words. Annie ripped it apart—no, she ripped off some wrapping that looked like silver but fluttered like paper—exposing a thin brown bar neatly shaped into squares. Misery smelled the sweetness of some confection, but it had a sour undertone and a fainter but even more unpleasant one of something not food at all, soap or lye or—

Annie shoved her against the headboard, pinning her with ease. She put one hand over Misery’s face. Suffocating, Misery struggled, then fought even harder when Annie’s fingers penetrated her mouth and pried her jaws open. 

“Turn up your nose at my food,” Annie muttered. “Turn up your nose at me. Your number-one fan!”

She shoved the brown bar into Misery’s mouth. It was hard, breaking up into sharp fragments that tasted sweet, too sweet, with a soapy undertone. Misery tried to say that she’d eat it, she didn’t need to be forced, but Annie struck her across the face when she tried. 

“No biting!” Annie snapped.

Her thick fingers were pushing the shards down Misery’s throat, not letting her chew, making her feel like she was choking even when she breathed through her mouth. They scraped her gullet and the inside of her mouth until she tasted the copper tang of blood within the sweetness. Misery gagged, her belly roiling, but somehow forced herself not to be sick. She was afraid of what Annie might do if she was.

Finally Annie released her. Misery lay back in the bed, trembling, cheeks soaked with tears, her mouth sore and bloody and full of that horrid foul sweetness. 

“Let me tell you something,” Annie said. “Ian and Geoffrey aren’t coming. They don’t exist here.”

“You killed them?” Misery gasped. 

“They don’t _exist_, you ninny! I already told you. Did you think I was too stupid for you to bother your pretty little head with listening?” Annie’s hard forefinger poked Misery in the chest. “You’re a character in a book! You died in a book, and I rescued you. But your precious Ian and Geoffrey are still in the books, and they can stay there. It’s just you and me now.”

Annie turned her back as she unlocked the door. Misery noted the location of the key—in her trouser pocket. The lock clicked again after the door shut. 

Misery felt immensely relieved to rid of the dreadful woman, even temporarily. She was the worst of all the people who had ever locked her up. 

And that was when she realized that the person Annie reminded her of the most was… no one at all. None of the villains who had threatened her in the past had even come close to her violence and unpredictability. 

Misery threw herself down on the bed, her chestnut hair spilling over the pillow, and wept. She cried until the cloth was soaked with tears, and the taste of salt washed away that of copper and sugar. As she lay weeping, she longed with all her heart for Geoffrey and Ian to be with her. She imagined them there until it almost seemed that they were, one on either side of her, their strong arms around her and each other, holding her close and safe. She could almost feel them. She could almost hear their voices. 

“Get up, my darling,” Geoffrey urged her. “Yes, the door is locked, but there is a window. Perhaps you can break it.”

As if in a dream, Misery arose and walked to the window. The sight that greeted her was at first reassuringly familiar: blue sky, green forest, white snow, red barn. Then she began to pick out the details, and they were as alien as the foul witch-food. A bizarre metal carriage with ridged black wheels and no traces. Some metal contrivance in a wooden container…

“A plow, I believe,” said Ian. “But a very strange one.”

The voices of the men she loved were only in her mind, but they reassured her. She touched the fine glass panes of the window, but they were far too small for her to fit through. The entire window was too small, even if she somehow contrived to shatter the wooden slats dividing the panes. And she saw no one, nor any other homes.

“The books,” suggested Ian. “The madwoman obviously thought they were important. Perhaps they hold a clue.”

She went to the stack of books. There were three of them, set neatly on the room’s single shelf. _A place of honor_, she thought. They were not quite like the yellowbacks she had initially thought they resembled—they were shorter in height, but thicker in width. She took the first one from the shelf.

Misery’s trembling hand nearly dropped the book. The painting on the cover depicted _her_, held tight in Ian’s embrace, both of them at the age when they had first met in the Little Dunthorpe churchyard. The title of the book was _Misery’s Quest_, written by Paul Sheldon.

“It can’t be!” she gasped aloud. 

“Open it,” Geoffrey urged her.

She opened it and read, _The infant who would become Misery Chastain was not given that name by her mother. If that woman bestowed anything upon her but the gift of life, none would ever know. When the dark-eyed baby was found on the bank of the river Withy, crying and naked and clinging to a thistle, she had nothing to identify her but a tiny red birthmark in the shape of a heart, placed below her left shoulderblade. A kind person, upon discovering her, might have named her Ruby for its color. But she was found by the Widow Rhea, a woman cold and hard as the granite mountains in which she made her home, and she named the baby Misery…_

Misery swayed, near fainting with shock. 

“Go to the bed, quickly!” 

She didn’t know which of her beloveds had spoken, but she almost felt a hand below each forearm as she stumbled to the bed and collapsed upon it. Once she was lying down, she quickly recovered her senses. But there was no accounting for the book, which she had taken with her and which she still held in her hand. The painting on the cover seemed to taunt her. It depicted one of the most beautiful and precious moments in her life, but when she looked at it, she felt as if she was in a nightmare.

“But what does it mean?” she murmured. “Are we truly mere characters in a book?”

“Being in a book doesn’t mean you’re not real,” Geoffrey pointed out. “There must be a hundred books recounting the deeds of the Duke of Wellington.”

“Yes, but I am not a famous man,” Misery replied. She felt profoundly unsettled. Could her whole life be nothing more than a story?

“I have heard… well, read…” Ian gave that self-deprecating shrug she loved so much. “There are people who believe that all our lives are stories in a book written by God.”

“Heathens,” said Geoffrey.

“Yes, of course,” Ian replied. “But perhaps they are partly right. Perhaps we live our lives under the eye of God, and are _also_ in stories.”

“I think I see, old boy,” said Geoffrey. “We aren’t created by writers, but writers tell the stories of our lives. Just like the books about the Duke of Wellington.”

“Something like that,” Ian said, smiling. 

Their theorizing made Misery feel better. It was so like the evenings they spent in front of the fire, drinking brandy and reminiscing and speaking of hopes and dreams, news and gossip, politics and hunting and poetry. It was that familiar conversation which made her feel real and solid, not their philosophizing that justified her existence outside of those flimsy pages.

“But what shall I do?” Misery asked. “Can you come and rescue me?”

At that question, the voices and the sense of presence faded. She could imagine them so vividly because she knew them so well, but they couldn’t tell her anything she didn’t know herself. 

What Annie knew about Misery, though, she apparently knew from those books. Misery sat down on the bed and opened the book from the beginning. Summoning the phantoms of Ian and Geoffrey to sit beside her, she began to read. 

Every detail of her life was correct, even deeply private ones which she had told no one. What was more, it also contained the thoughts and doings of Ian and Geoffrey, which accorded with what they had told her later, and which the men (at least, the versions of them in her mind) confirmed were accurate. 

At first Misery read with horror, but that soon eased. It was fascinating to explore the corners of her life which had been hitherto unknown to her, and deeply moving to read of the depths of love which both men felt for her and for each other. After a while, she almost forgot that she was reading about herself and events whose outcome she already knew, and became lost in the story.

She jumped when the door opened. Annie came in with a sack, a bucket, and a basin of water from which steam was rising. Misery eyed her warily. She expected Annie to ask about the book, but she ignored it. 

“I brought you some presents,” Annie said. She set the basin and bucket on the floor, then upended the sack over the bed. A mass of cloth tumbled out. “Hot water for your bath, a chamberpot, washcloths, and clothes so you won’t have to sit around in your petticoats.” She tittered, her cheeks flushing. “Not that you’re not used to that!”

“Thank you,” Misery said, ignoring the remark about her petticoats. “You’re very kind.”

“Well?” Annie said, gazing at her with something akin to greed or hunger or desire. Possessiveness, Misery decided. “Don’t you want your bath?”

Misery was more than used to her captors wishing to watch her bathe. Politely, she said, “I am accustomed to bathing alone.”

She was also used to her jailers arguing or bargaining with her, trying to bribe or seduce her, and sometimes removing hot water and replacing it with snowmelt when she held firm. So she was prepared for Annie to confiscate her bath. She was even prepared to be slapped. 

Later, her blood would run cold at the memory of her own naivete. 

Annie’s face went brick-red. She lunged and kicked over the bucket, screaming, “You want to throw me out of my own house!” 

“No, I—”

The madwoman seized her hair in her meaty fist and yanked her to her feet. The pain was unexpected and shocking. Misery cried out.

“Look what you made me do!” Annie raged. “You dirty bird! Clean it up!”

The tears standing in Misery’s eyes spilled over as she bent to take a cloth from the heap on the bed. 

Annie struck it from her hand. “With your hair.” 

Misery stared at her, aghast. “What?”

“You heard me.” Annie folded her arms. “Wipe up that spill with your hair.”

Two could play that game. Misery folded her own arms. “I won’t.”

Annie was no longer raging. Instead, a little smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. “Yes, you will. You will, because you want to keep your baby.”

“What?”

Annie nodded, her smile widening. “You’re not even a month along. Anything could make you lose it. A hard fall to a hard floor. Or a hard punch to the belly.”

Misery’s hands instinctively flew to cover her womb. “You wouldn’t! You—you’re a woman too!”

Then it was contempt that curled Annie’s lips. “Who do women go to when they _want_ to rid themselves of a pregnancy? The old witch! You visited one yourself in _Misery’s Journey,_ and you were oh so offended when she asked you if you wanted ‘a draft to expel a brat in your belly!’”

It was true. Misery, who had crept trembling into that noisome hut in the dead of night to obtain herbs to cleanse Geoffrey’s poisoned wound, had been outraged at the witch’s assumption. But she was certain that even the witch herself, who did nothing without pay, would have been horrified at Annie’s threat. 

Misery looked at Annie’s clenched and upraised fist. Yes. That evil woman would carry out her threat… perhaps even with pleasure.

Weeping, Misery dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl over the floor, head bowed painfully low, swishing her long chestnut hair through the still-warm pool of water. Annie watched her the entire time. Misery tried not to look up at her, but when she did, she saw gloating mixed with resentment. Like a poor girl who had stolen a rich girl’s fine dollie, and was alternately dressing it and beating it. 

Misery had done that once, when she was still in the keep of the cruel Widow Rhea. With no toys of her own but what she could make from stones and twigs and grass, she had coveted the flaxen-haired dollie beloved of Lord Cummersdale’s little daughter Elizabeth. 

One day while on an errand of the widow’s, footsore and weary, she had passed Lord Cummersdale’s grand house and spotted Elizabeth asleep in the garden with her dollie beside her. Misery darted up, snatched the dollie, and sped away with it. She hid it in a cave, bestowed on it the grand name of Sophronia, and spent all her scant free time with it, stroking its hair and talking to it. 

But her bitterness at the dollie, which unlike Misery herself had clean hair and fine clothes and someone who loved her, eventually overcame her. One night when she had fled the cruel widow’s house into a thunderstorm, and sat shivering and dripping in the cold bare cave, she had picked up the doll for comfort. But as if her hands had been possessed by some destructive force, she instead ripped the doll to pieces. She immediately regretted her hasty action, but it was too late. There was nothing to be done but bury the remains of Sophronia and weep over her grave. 

“That’s enough,” Annie said. “You’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Annie. I have.” Misery kept her voice humble, like a child who wouldn’t be bad again. With an inner chill, she thought, _I _ have_ learned a lesson. I’ve learned that I’m Sophronia. _

“Then I’ll bring you more water.” Annie took the basin and went out. She almost immediately returned with it full again, and again steaming hot. Did she have a great cauldron bubbling ominously on a fire? 

Misery gave her the most effusive thanks she could manage. Then, biting her lip, her skin goose-pimpling, she disrobed while Annie watched. She tried not to meet Annie’s hungry, greedy, bitter gaze. At least Annie let her wet the cloths and clean her own body, rather than trying to bathe her. But then Misery remembered Sophronia, at whom she had merely gazed for days before she’d so much as undressed her, and thought, _She’s saving that for later. As a treat._

When Misery had finished her bath and put on a plain dress that hung on her like a sack, Annie spoke almost apologetically. “I’ll find some way to get you prettier clothes. I can’t buy them here, you see. People would wonder! Maybe I’ll drive into another town where no one knows me, and say they’re a present for my sister.”

“You could get them for yourself, too,” Misery suggested. “In complementary colors, perhaps. Dark blue for you, and light for me. Or red for me and pink for you.”

Annie simpered, delighted, and said, “Moss green for me, and leaf for you!”

Misery knew that both of them would look horribly jaundiced in any shade of green, but she smiled and led Annie on a discussion of ribbons and lace and other accoutrements. When Annie asked, almost timidly, about the gown Misery had worn at the Earl’s ball where Ian had been forced to challenge Geoffrey to a duel to preserve the fiction that they were enemies, Misery started with the gown and continued to telling her every detail of the ball. Annie listened, entranced.

“Yes,” said Ian inside her mind. “That’s the key. Give her something she wants other than your person. Tell her stories.”

“Gossip, even,” said Geoffrey. “She’s read the books, but you can tell her more. You can tell her what the writer of our lives left out.”

“Small things,” Ian said quickly. “The color of the icing on the cakes. Mrs. Hallatrow’s secret stash of gin.”

“Of course,” Misery replied silently. Aloud, her voice burbled on like a running stream, describing the amusing mistake Lord Wolverington had made over the provenance of Lady Bradenham’s French armoire. “She shall not learn anything truly intimate.”

And she dismissed the men, so she could think in the privacy of her mind, _But she won’t be content with cakes and furniture and gossip about others for long. _

Misery spoke until her throat was sore and her voice grew hoarse. But it was only when she broke into a fit of coughing that Annie allowed her stop. 

“You rest your voice, and I’ll bring you dinner,” Annie said. “I’ll try to make it something you’ll like—something more like what you’re used to. No more Hershey’s for you!”

When Annie finally left her alone, Misery lay back, exhausted. 

_Our baby, _ she thought. _Annie knows I’m with child because she read about it in the book. _

The book Misery hadn’t read, because Annie had burned it. The book in which she died.

_If the birth kills me, losing the babe early might save my life. _

But Misery, not having read the book herself, didn’t know why she had died. Had there been no doctor present who might have saved her? Had she been weakened by privation or illness, and so unable to withstand the stress of the labor? There were so many reasons why women died in childbed. 

She couldn’t bring herself to accept her death as an inevitability. She had endured so much already, escaped so many seemingly inescapable and dreadful fates, surely she could escape this one too. And why should she trust Annie’s word on what she'd read? She might be lying. She might believe it herself, but she might also believe that she danced with the fairies every night. In her fine barnyard ballroom, invited by the Prince of Oxen and attended by mooing handmaidens.

Misery startled herself with a giggle. Evidently Annie had failed to crush her spirit, if she could spin out such wild flights of fancy.

Misery, whose life had been filled with great sorrow, great joy, and great love, was not about to give up and accept that either she or her babe must die. As Ian and Geoffrey had protected her, so would she protect her child. 

But she might not have much time. Annie might lose her temper with Misery and kill her in a fit of pique. She might try to destroy her babe to extend her life. Or—she felt a cold chill at this idea—Annie might prefer a dollie with a flat belly, one that wasn’t sick every morning. If that was so, Misery had very little time.

And yet her time seemed as if it might stretch on forever. Her days settled into a rhythm that felt eerily everyday. In the morning, Annie brought her two eggs, a slice of toast, and a glass of milk. Annie watched her eat and dress, and Annie combed her hair, sometimes letting Misery comb her own hair in return. Lunch was the same as breakfast, but with the addition of a cup of honeyed tisane. For dinner, she got potatoes and meat. All her food was recognizable but tasteless. Before bed, Annie watched her bathe.

She brought Misery dresses that were always subtly wrong in fit and feel and appearance, with tags and seams that itched, but Misery always made sure to praise her taste. Annie never did buy anything for herself, but she enjoyed listening to Misery make suggestions for what would suit her. 

And during all of this, she listened to Misery talk. Sometimes Misery felt that Annie was draining her dry, like one of the bloodsucking bats Ian said were found in America. And more and more, Annie grew impatient with her village gossip and descriptions of places, pressing her to tell more about herself and Ian and Geoffrey. When Misery tried telling her stories that were already in the books, Annie would impatiently say she knew those already; she wanted something _new_. Misery evaded her with trivial anecdotes, but she knew that state of affairs wouldn’t last forever. 

As much as she dared, Misery tried to engage Annie in conversation. Everyone liked to talk about themselves, in Misery’s experience. But trying to discuss Annie with Annie was like venturing across a fen dotted with bogs; one false step would suck you into the mire and leave you covered in stinking muck if you were lucky, and drown you if you weren’t. Her timid questions were sometimes met with anger and suspicion and wild accusations, and sometimes with anecdotes that left Misery desperately attempting to cover her own horror. 

Annie, it seemed, was a murderess. This did not surprise Misery, exactly, but it did shock her. And far worse than the fact of murder were the hints that infants had been among her victims. Annie spoke of such things in a vague and drifting manner, and seemed not to remember her own confessions afterward. Misery would have liked to believe that they were mere fantasies. But she knew in her heart that they were true. 

_Oh Ian,_ she pleaded silently. _Dear Geoffrey. Come soon, please, and rescue me and our babe._

Misery waited for the knock at the door, the crash of breaking glass, the desperate shout of her name, the crackle of a fire set as a distraction. But there was no voice but Annie’s, no knock but Annie’s, no fire but that which presumably heated Annie’s inexhaustible cauldron of hot water. 

Then came the night when Misery awoke suddenly. She barely had time to snatch for the chamber pot before she was sick. She wiped her mouth, closed her eyes while she waited for her stomach to settle, then got up and crept silently to the window. 

The pale light was that of the moon reflecting off the snow. It was not yet dawn. 

With a certainty as cold and heavy as if she carried a stone rather than a living child within her belly, Misery knew that she was out of time. Annie had been able to forget about Misery’s babe as long as she wasn’t forced to confront the reality of pregnancy, but she would not be able to ignore it once she came to empty the chamber pot. And then she would do… something.

Misery had never rescued herself. Oh, she had helped. She had feigned illness, distracted guards with her legs or tripped them with her foot, once even broken a priceless china vase over the head of a viscount. But she had never been the sole instrument of her own deliverance. 

“You can do it,” said Ian, and she almost felt his warm lips brushing her cheek.

“You _always_ escape,” said Geoffrey, and she almost felt his strong hand resting between her shoulder blades. 

“But how?” she asked silently. “I have only a few hours. The door is locked. The window is too small. She’s far stronger than me. There is nothing here I can strike her with—no priceless china vase, no table or chairs. The wash basin and the chamberpot are both made of that strange light material…”

“Throw its contents in her face?” Geoffrey suggested. Ian’s lips wrinkled in disgust.

Misery too was revolted, though some angry part of her liked the suggestion for exactly that reason. Regretfully, she shook her head. “Annie is a nurse. She won’t faint if she’s befouled. She might be startled, but she’ll recover quickly. It would anger her, no more. I might as well throw the books…” 

Misery’s inner voice trailed off. The books. The books which had started everything—the books which had brought her there. Annie had transported her to this prison by means of books. Could they be the means of transporting herself out of it? If she sat and read the books as Annie did, and longed to be home…?

But she had done that already. She had done it every day since she’d come to this hateful room, reading the story of her own life over and over. Whatever power Annie had summoned to bring Misery to her, Misery couldn’t use the same method to transport herself back. 

She recalled their discussion when they had first seen the books. _ “All our lives are stories in a book,”_ Ian had said. Geoffrey had suggested, _“We aren’t created by writers, but writers tell the stories of our lives.”_

Annie had used the story of Misery’s life to bring her here, to summon her from her book into her own reality. Maybe Misery couldn’t use her own life because it was already present, in both book and reality. But Annie existed only in reality. What if she was placed in a story as well?

Misery didn’t dare think farther than that. Any analysis might break the spell. She closed her eyes briefly, trying to feel her way into the idea. She needed something to write on and something to write with. She had paper, but it was covered with printing already. And she had no ink or pen. 

“Never mind that,” Ian said. “Keep it simple. Something to write on and something to write with…”

And then she remembered the witch, who had put a drop of Misery’s own blood into the poultice for Geoffrey’s poisoned wound. _“There is power in blood,”_ she’d said.

Misery moved quickly, feeling, searching. There were some splinters in the floor and walls, but they weren’t sharp enough. If she broke any glass, the sound would wake Annie…

…or would it? There was something slow and sluggish about the woman. And people slept very heavily in the pre-dawn hours.

Misery took off her nightgown and wrapped it around her arm. Nude, her body gleaming like a marble statue come to life, she moved to the window. 

“Oh, my darling,” Ian whispered.

“Be brave,” murmured Geoffrey.

Misery gritted her teeth. Then, bracing herself with her other hand on the sill, she struck one pane with her elbow, throwing her entire weight behind it. The glass shattered with a sound that seemed terrifyingly loud. She winced as she listened to fragments tinkle to the ground outside, then waited, her heart pounding. 

But she heard no thud of angry footsteps. Perhaps the sound had only been loud to her as she stood directly beside the window.

Cold air rushed in, chilling her naked body. Shivering, Misery used her wrapped hand to snap a shard from the broken pane. She dropped it into the wash basin, then unwrapped and donned her nightgown. And then, quickly so she wouldn’t waste time in the dreading, she slashed her wrist with the shard and let the blood run into the basin. 

The pain was sharp, but not more than she could bear; no worse than the cramps that sometimes came with her flow. Holding her arm over the basin, she set it on the bed, dipped the finger of her other hand into the blood, and began to write.

“You dirty bird!” 

Misery, engrossed in her work, was so startled by Annie’s shriek behind her that she nearly overturned the basin. She turned around, as disoriented as she had been when she’d awakened in this strange prison. 

The room was flooded with light. It was past dawn and into morning. Annie stood frozen in the doorway, holding the tray of Misery’s breakfast, her face twisted with shock and rage.

“You dirty, DIRTY bird!” Annie screamed, then stopped suddenly. She sniffed the air, then flung down the tray. The plates and dishes bounced, and eggs and milk spattered the floor. 

Misery shrank back, still clutching the basin, as Annie marched to the chamberpot and inspected its contents. When she looked up, her expression held the same terrifying vagueness with which she spoke of the murder of infants.

“Pregnant women get their notions,” Annie said. With a sudden giggle, she said, “Pickles and ice cream! Writing in blood on the wall!”

_The spell didn’t work,_ Misery realized. She was still here. Suddenly, her arm, which she’d had to cut multiple times and then squeeze to get more blood out, hurt with a terrible ache that went down to the bone. 

“Enough of that,” Annie said, nodding to herself. “We’ll take care of that.”

And then she was out the door. The lock clicked behind her. 

Misery sank down on the bed in despair. Her spell had failed. She was still here. And Annie would return, to splash soapy water on the walls and force her to lick them clean, or with some foul herb to kill her babe, or with that threatened punch to the belly.

Misery clutched the glass shard. It was small, far too small to reach Annie’s heart. But maybe she could slice her throat. Or put out her eye.

“Do it,” Geoffrey urged her. 

“Yes, do,” said Ian. “It’s your only chance.”

It was not horror or revulsion that stayed her hand, but the dull knowledge of futility. Oh, she could try. But Annie was far too strong and cunning, and the shard was far too small. Misery could no doubt cut her hand, but she’d never do more harm than that. 

The story of Annie’s life, written in blood—it was all there, covering the walls, the remaining panes of glass, even some of the floor. Why hadn’t it worked? Why had Misery's spell failed, written in blood and fury, when Annie had summoned her with nothing more than fan love?

“Love,” said Ian.

“Love,” echoed Geoffrey.

And then Misery knew. Slashing her arm again, she dropped to her knees before one of the few still-blank portions of the floor, and wrote, _But the love between Misery, Ian, and Geoffrey was more powerful…_

The door opened. Misery couldn’t help glancing up. Annie stood with a wire coat hanger in her hand. She looked down, her gaze dreamy, and began untwisting the wire. 

“It’ll only hurt for a minute,” Annie said. “It’s for your own good.”

Horrified, Misery thought Annie intended to use the wire to blind her, as she had imagined doing to Annie. Then she remembered the whispered stories of what desperate women did when herbs didn’t work, and she knew.

Misery couldn’t force the horror and fear from her heart. But she could picture Ian and Geoffrey, and let love dwell within her as well. Quickly, she wrote the final words on the floor:

_…than madness. Love carried Misery back to love._

Annie shoved her down on her back. Her head painfully struck the floor. Annie pushed her nightgown up, muttering to herself, the length of wire clutched in her hand.

Misery crossed her legs tightly and reached out—not to push Annie away, but to the floor. With bloody fingers she scrawled,

_THE END_

Two pairs of familiar arms were holding her tight. Two beloved voices were calling, “Misery, Misery, my darling!”

Misery opened her eyes. She was on the floor of her own home, with Ian holding her while Geoffrey wound bandages around her throbbing arm.

When she opened her eyes, all three of them clutched each other and wept for joy. In broken sentences interspersed by many questions and much kissing, Misery told them the entire tale. It was a mark of the love and trust between them—the love that had enabled her to escape—that they showed not a shadow of a doubt that her adventure was true, but only praised her courage and quick wits, comforted her when she shivered, and rejoiced at the baby that would share in their love.

“We must have a doctor to attend my birth,” Misery said. 

“Of course,” said Ian. 

“I will fetch him the instant your labor begins,” said Geoffrey.

“You will never reach him. He must be summoned in advance. Luckily, I know the exact day and time when my labor will begin.” Misery shuddered at the memory of how she knew. “It’s so strange. If Annie proves to be correct about the time of the birth and its danger, then she will have saved my life.”

“It will not redeem her," Ian said. "I have never raised my hand to a woman. But…”

“And you never will.” Reassuring herself as well as him, she said, “Annie is gone.”

“Are you certain?” Geoffrey asked. 

“I am,” said Misery.

She picked up a book from the floor. It was a yellowback, shiny and new, with a cover illustration of a woman standing in shadow. She had Annie's unmistakable silhouette, and in one hand she brandished a wire hanger. The title was _Misery’s Escape._

“After all,” Misery went on. “She’s only a character in a book.”

**Author's Note:**

> Violence. Period-typical terms for mental illness. References to canon child murder. Annie touches, force-feeds, and is generally creepy about Misery. Annie threatens Misery with a forced abortion.


End file.
